Four Women and a Funeral
Upstairs at the Gatehouse
★★★★

DON’T expect this show from Ovation productions to be anything like the Hugh Grant/ Richard Curtis romantic comedy of yore. Comedy it has in abundance but mainly of the black variety, and romance is non-existent for these four women.

They are (mainly) mourners at a funeral reception to be held for Reuben Roffe at the Restmore Funeral Home in the Poconos Mountains Pennsylvania. The celebrant or host is Shelley (Victoria Jeffrey) but mourners are thin on the ground as terrible snowstorms are playing havoc with the transport system and only three women manage to struggle through.

First to arrive is his widow (Donna Combe), next his mistress (Eliza McClelland) and finally a mystery guest (Leda Hodgson). The wife and mistress get on like a house on fire — literally — with Mrs Roffe hurling abuse at her as if it were about to go out of fashion, while she absorbs it without too much fight back. 

The mistress is an overly theatrical grandstanding actress, well past her sell-by date, who talks to people as if she’s addressing a vast theatre full of adoring fans, while the widow is a dowdy woman who does not seem greatly put out by her husband’s demise.

The celebrant’s main profession is stand-up comedy and whose job here is to tell jokes at this funeral. The mystery woman, as is later revealed, is an FBI officer. Clearly something mightily fishy is going on and the Feds are on the case.

It turns out that Reuben has been a very naughty boy and left behind a mystery wife and multiple offspring. Not only that, he might have been mixed up with the Medellin drugs cartel, run by the notorious Pablo Escobar, by helping him launder his billions.

As if that weren’t enough, he might not even be dead. The last “guest” on the scene is the corpse himself; Reuben Roffe. As he is wheeled on in his coffin the mourners and Shelley fight tooth and coffin nail over whether or not to open the box and reveal all.

Clearly, playwright Jennifer Selway is having enormous fun sending up the genre of substandard Agatha Christie-esque whodunnits where no-one is who they seem and shocking secrets have to be unearthed. Full of twists and turns, my only slight peeve in this very funny piece is that it ends not in a twist but a massive U-turn. Do I detect the influence of Starmer here?

4WAAF is skilfully directed by Racky Plews and it’s great to see Ovation back at the Gatehouse after a long gap.

Run ended.